Gapinski, Kathryn F.

Jeffrey's practice consists primarily of representing severely injured persons in personal injury matters with an emphasis in mass torts and products liability cases regarding over-the-counter drugs, pharmaceutical drugs, toxic torts or chemical exposure cases, automobile defects, and asbestos litigation. Jeffrey has been appointed to the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in the Multi-District Litigation Proceeding (No. 2066) In Re: Oral Sodium Phosphate Solution Based Products Liability Litigation, which is currently pending in Federal Court in the Northern District of Ohio. Jeffrey also handles medical and professional mal-practice cases, automobile accidents and general negligence matters.

Jeffrey has significant experience in complex business torts, which include partnership and shareholder disputes, severance agreement disputes, intellectual property disputes, entertainment litigation, and construction and real estate disputes. Jeffrey has experience in securities litigation and arbitrations, investor fraud claims and business disputes over non-compete agreements  and trade secrets.

Jeffrey is admitted to practice in all state courts of Florida and the federal courts of the United States District Courts in and for the Southern, Middle and Northern Districts of Florida. He has also been admitted on a case-by-case basis in many state and federal courts throughout the nation.  He graduated from the University of Miami School of Law, cum laude, in 1995.

Accomplishments 

Jeffrey D. DeCarlo's practice includes litigation primarily in areas of defective pharmaceutical drugs, consumer products liability and complex business litigation. In the area of Mass Torts, Jeffrey D. DeCarlo was recently appointed to the Plaintiff's Steering Committee in the Oral Sodium Phosphate Solution ("OSPS") Multi-District Litigation Proceeding No. 2066 also known as the Fleet® Phospho-soda® Laxative MDL (or "Fleet MDL"). Jeffrey D. DeCarlo played a principal role in developing the national settlement criteria for the recently announced settlement of over 350 claims in the Fleet MDL. Jeffrey D. DeCarlo, has been one of a very small group of attorneys that exposed the sodium phosphate bowel cleansers as a leading cause of kidney failure among patients who used these laxatives to prepare for colonoscopies over the past two decades.

For the past six years, Jeffrey D. DeCarlo has been actively litigating claims across the country against C.B. Fleet, Company, Inc. and other manufacturers of sodium phosphate bowel cleansers. Since the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation formed the Fleet MDL in June, 2009, Jeffrey D. DeCarlo worked with a small group of attorneys and with Fleet and its insurers to negotiate a global settlement of the MDL. While the precise terms of the settlement reached in the MDL are confidential, the settlement effectively resolves most cases involving injuries caused by Fleet® Phospho-soda®, Jeffrey D. DeCarlo, P.A. continues to pursue claims against the manufacturers of generic Phospho-soda (such as those products sold by Publix, Walgreens, CVS and Safeway) and Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which distributes tablet versions of these bowel cleansers that are sold as OsmoPrep Tablets and Visicol Tablets. These new claims are founded in the fraudulent promotion of Fleet® Phospho-soda® as "safe" and the resulting campaign of marketing misinformation on the safety and efficacy of subsequently developed OsmoPrep Tablets, Visicol Tablets and generic Phospho-soda solutions targeted at US doctors and their patients.